Compound and Polish

[Giannis]

Hi,

my task is to remove etchings, a few scratches and swirls from black metallic paint. I will do everything by hand and foam.

My question is do I do the whole car with Ultimate Compound to remove the etchings/scratches/swirls and then polish the whole car OR do I compound the etchings/scratches topically and polish the whole car to remove the swirls?

P.S: I will use Meguiar's ultimate compound and polish, I think its too much to do compound, a swirl remover and then a polish.

Thanks

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Compound and Polish

Welcome to MOL!!

Whether you need to use the compound on the entire car is up to you. Do a test spot first to determine what it's going to take to remove the swirls and other defects, and also look at how that makes the paint in that area look compared to the rest of the car. If the defects are truly isolated and the rest of the paint looks really good, then you might be able to get away without compounding the entire car. The polish step will enhance gloss and depth of color throughout the finish so that should definitely be done to the whole car prior to waxing.

Don't get lost in semantics here, either. A compound and swirl remover are basically the same thing, or at least used for the same purpose. To a lesser extent, so too is the polish but it's quite light duty in its defect removing ability so correction is usually better handled with a more aggressive product (ie, compound).

[marc otra]

Re: Compound and Polish

when the compound gets dry on the paint, can i spray on some quick detailer to remove it easily?

[The Guz]

Re: Compound and Polish

Yes you can. You could also add a little more compound to remove the dried on compound. Remember like removes like.